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Mac Baseball Finishes A Big Season

The McMaster Marauders baseball team finished their 2018 OUA regular season schedule on Saturday with a double header against the Toronto Varsity Blues.

Mac took the first game of the twin bill by a score of 7-6 in a back and forth contest that was played in the rain most of the afternoon.

The home side jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the second inning. The first run would come home on a balk call then the Marauders’ Lucas DaSilva singled in the second run.

However, Mac would then commit a pair of errors in the top of the third which helped Toronto secure the lead with three runs crossing the plate. But they didn’t hold the lead for that long as The Varsity Blues committed two of their seven errors in the game which allowed a run to score. The Marauders regained the lead in the fourth before the teams traded two runs each in the fifth inning.

McMaster held onto the lead until the eighth when back to back singles with a runner already on base cashed in the tying run for Toronto.

Jeremie Veilleux would put the Marauders ahead for good in the bottom of the eighth with a solo home run, his first career OUA dinger, and give McMaster their tenth win of the year.

Quinn Finch would pick up the win in relief of Ryan Clark who went four innings, allowing five runs, only one was unearned. Finch went the final five innings, allow six hits.

Veilleux and Mark Zanette each had a pair of hits in the game. Veilleux went two-for-four with a single, home run, a walk, scoring a run and batting in one run while Zanette went two-for-five with two singles and an RBI.

In game two it was a completely different story.

Nik Motruck got the start on the mound for the Marauders and was pitching a gem but could not get any support from his hitters. Motruk wasn’t the only one throwing a gem though as Toronto’s Dean Christidis picked up the win and had a perfect game through three innings before he allowed a hit.

The Varsity Blues scored in their half of the fourth and McMaster responded in their half when Johnny Martino hit a bloop single which brought in Brandon Chong who had singled to open the inning and broke up the prefect game.

From that point on it was all Toronto who scored three in the fifth and six more in the sixth inning which saw them send 11 batters to the plate. They would go on to add two more for good measure in the seventh to close out the scoring, handing the Marauders a 12-1 loss.

McMaster would have just four hits in game two of the doubleheader with Chong getting two of them.

With the split, the Marauders finish the regular season 10-8. That is the best record for the team, and their first winning season, since the 2009 season where they finished the regular season in first place. While it is a decent record, McMaster will finish anywhere between fourth and seventh place. That all depends on the eight games that still have to be played throughout the league due to rainouts.

The 2018 OUA baseball playoffs will take place in two weeks time with three games of pool play. The top team from the three pools plus a wild card team will advance to Sunday for the semi-finals followed by the championship. All games for the playoffs will be played at the Ajax Sportsplex which hosted the baseball and softball competitions during the 2015 Pan Am Games.